GOP Continues Its Vicious Assault Against Americans’ Health Care

After spending 19 months cynically working to sabotage Americans’ health care and drive up premiums, Republicans are bringing up yet another sabotage bill: H.R. 6311, the so-called “Increasing Access to Lower Premium Plans and Expanding Health Savings Accounts Act.” The bill’s provisions would steer more Americans into catastrophic plans that have higher deductibles and co-pays, reduce choice and competition in the ACA Marketplaces and lead to increased premiums for people with pre-existing conditions, hurting millions of Americans.

At every opportunity, Republicans are making health care more expensive for hard-working families — attacking people with pre-existing conditions, cynically driving up insurance premiums, and handing massive tax breaks to the same pharmaceutical companies raising drug prices:

• GOP Attacks Pre-Existing Conditions — House Republicans voted to take away protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and now they’re suing to take away those protections too. Republicans’ attacks on pre-existing conditions puts 130 million Americans with health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, cancer, mental health or substance abuse at risk. Nearly 68 million women and girls nationwide would be targeted, including millions of pregnant women.
• GOP Votes for Age Tax on Older Americans — House Republicans voted to allow insurance companies to charge older Americans up to five times more than younger people, no matter how healthy they are, in what AARP called an “Age Tax.” Now, older Americans are feeling the pain of higher health costs from Republicans’ health care sabotage and rising prescription drug costs.
• GOP Gives Multi-Billion Dollar Tax Breaks to Pharma Companies Raising Drug Prices — Republicans gave tax windfalls worth tens of billions of dollars to big drug companies, while raising drug prices on seniors and families even higher.
• GOP Sabotage Spiking Health Insurance Premiums — after trying to push families into shoddy junk plans, and cutting the insurance enrollment period in half, the Trump Administration is now cutting off key risk adjustment payments that help hold down premiums.

While Republicans raise Americans’ health costs and hand tax breaks to big pharma, Democrats are calling for bold action to crack down on drug price hikes, and enable Medicare to negotiate A Better Deal to lower prescription drug costs.

GOP Tax Scam for the Rich

More than 60 percent of American voters say the GOP tax scam for the rich will either have a negative impact or no effect at all on their families — as the wealthy and well-connected rake in their windfalls:

• Wall Street has been one of the biggest recipients the GOP’s massive giveaways, and will continue to be one of the biggest beneficiaries over the long-run, according to a report from Ernst & Young.
• Wealthy corporations are reaping massive windfalls from the giveaways in the GOP tax scam for the rich, on track to spend $1 trillion on dividends and stock buybacks from the windfall of the tax scam while simultaneously announcing tens of thousands of layoffs and shipping jobs overseas.
• The debt from the GOP tax scam for the rich is growing. The CBO found that the reckless giveaways of the unpaid-for GOP tax scam will add even more to the debt than they originally projected — further endangering Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security;
• Increasing health insurance premiums — the health care sabotage within the GOP tax scam for the rich is exploding the national average annual benchmark plan premiums for a family of four by $1,990 in 2019, according to a new state-by-state report.

The deficit-exploding GOP tax scam for the rich sold out Medicare, Medicaid and the middle class to further enrich big corporations and the wealthiest 1 percent:

• Raises Taxes on 86 Million Middle Class Families — the GOP tax scam’s meager, temporary benefits for the middle class evaporate in a few years, and the scam ultimately raises taxes on 86 million middle class families.
• Gives 83 Percent of the Tax Cuts to the Wealthiest 1 Percent — the GOP tax scam puts corporations and the richest ahead of everyone else.
• $1.3 Trillion Tax Rate Break for Corporations — instead of simplifying the tax code or making it fairer, Republicans handed permanent tax breaks to big corporations, rewarded corporations shipping jobs overseas, and added even more loopholes for special interests to exploit.
• Explodes the Deficit by Nearly $2 Trillion, Targets Medicare & Medicaid — Republicans have stuck our children with the bill for their deficit-exploding giveaways to the wealthiest, and will use the enormous deficits they created to justify ransacking the future of Medicare, Medicaid, education, veterans, and working families.

Democrats want real, bipartisan tax reform that creates jobs, reduces the deficit and puts the middle class first with A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, Better Future.

Republican Raw Deal vs Democrats’ Better Deal

This week, the Republicans rolled out their new messaging slogan: “Better Off Now” — but it is only the well-off who are better off, as hard-working families are hit with rising costs and the destructive consequences of Trump’s reckless, special-interest first policies:

• Soaring Health Care Costs — Republicans’ cynical assaults on Americans’ health care, suspending key stabilizing payments and pushing people into junk health plans that don’t provide essential coverage, is needlessly driving up premiums and endangering protections for people with pre-existing conditions across America.
• Rising Gas Prices — Trump’s recklessness on the global stage has caused rising gas prices that are stealing much of the meager gains middle class families have made, even as he touts the GOP Tax Scam for the rich which handed billions in new tax breaks to the same Big Oil companies that are charging families more at the pump.
• Flat Wages — As CEOs and shareholders hoard the windfall of the GOP tax scam, workers continue to be denied the bigger paychecks they deserve. Today, a nearly unprecedented one in every seven workers is being denied a pay raise, leading experts to conclude that wages will likely stay stagnant for workers across the entire country during the Trump presidency.
• Staggering Debt Burden — the massive, completely unpaid for giveaways of the GOP Tax Scam have added almost $2 trillion to the federal deficit, adding more than $6,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in America.

The American people are confronted with a GOP Congress and Administration that has taken every opportunity to stack the deck for the wealthy and well-connected against hard-working American families and seniors. From health care, to taxes, to good-paying jobs, to critical consumer protections President Trump and the GOP Congress are giving the American people a raw deal.

Democrats are fighting for A Better Deal: Better Jobs, Better Wages, and a Better Future for everyone. Democrats’ pledge for the people is to:

• Lower your health care costs and prescription drug prices;
• Increase your pay through strong economic growth by rebuilding America;
• Clean up corruption to make Washington work for you.